Some of them surely were from my home county in Virginia, just as some of ours were surely from Albany and your hometown. I prepare them to the best of my ability. I go out and watch my men bury their own and I no longer know what victory is. Is it measured by how many men are buried each time? Is it enough to measure it by who has moved a half mile toward the enemy’s lines from the night before?
When I went to West Point, I assumed that becoming an officer at our nation’s military college would give me a purpose and clarity. When events confronted me with a choice between serving the North or Virginia, that choice was clear. And I do not regret my decision. But now all I care about is planning a battle, any battle, to win with the fewest casualties. I will not let them say of me that, coming from the South, I made less than a total effort for the Union.
My hope is that some day my family will understand and forgive me. I miss you terribly, my dear Frances. Your support and affection are what sustains me.
Your loving George
◊◊◊
It was nine months before we fought another big battle, at Chickamauga. The routine of camp life was relieved by a skirmish now and then, but very little was happening. Desertion was rampant, and generals’ wives practically lived with their husbands. But General Thomas never took a leave during this time, and his wife never came from the East to pretend with him that there was not a war going on.
You would think that nine months would be enough time to devise a strategy to defeat the Rebels. We won a victory of sorts at Stone River and caused the Confederates to give up their first push to the Ohio River. And Grant had Vicksburg bottled up for months.
Winning the war was the issue. But the plan seemed to be nothing more than waiting and moving and hoping. This was what finally ended Rosecrans’ career in the West. He seemed to think that we could invade the South and win just by attrition, by one small battle after another. He could not grasp the fact that the Rebel cavalry alone, with countless quick strikes, would ruin that plan by frustrating our army enough to make the public in the North too impatient with the war.
General Thomas had a different idea of winning: you had to crush the Confederate army in the West with a major victory, one so large that they would give up and go home. He did not believe, like Grant, that having more soldiers in the field would be enough; that you could wear the South down through numbers. Our men would have to be better prepared, better equipped, and better supplied as well. And the weakest part of our army—the cavalry—had to be brought up to a level with the infantry and artillery. As long as Rosecrans was in charge, Thomas could prepare the army—and did for those nine months. But he could not pick his battles until he was the commander. At Chickamauga, the most violent two days of the entire war, he would have to make up for not being the commander by saving the army that Rosecrans, by his strategy of attrition, had left completely exposed in the northern Georgia thickets.
From January to September, we sat in camp or moved a few miles, inching our way toward the railroad center of Chattanooga. We guessed that General Bragg, commanding the Rebel forces, would make his stand at that city, with his troops and guns perched on the mountains surrounding Chattanooga, to rake us as we approached. Believing that may have made us more hesitant to proceed: when we all got there, Bragg would have the advantage.
I think the hesitancy that we all felt was what brought me into Thomas’ confidence.
◊◊◊
One night, after a few miles of marching in a steady rain, the boys go into camp hungry, wet, and tired, but soon enough have a hundred fires kindled and are eating their supper. Some fervent spirit, determined that the weather is not going to get him down, strikes up the national anthem:
O! say, can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.
A hundred voices join in, and the distant mountains seem to resound with their own song:
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
A band far off to the right is mingling its music with the voices, along with the occasional whinny of horses and squawk of mules in camp. I have ridden to Thomas’ tent to deliver a routine report on the position of my troops for the night, and to get from him the orders for the morning.
I must have jumped back when I saw his eyes glistening, out of sight of the singing soldiers a few yards away. He said nothing as long as they continued through song after song, some patriotic, some romantic, some downright rude.
Without saying anything, he motioned for me to close the flap of the tent and sit down on the cot opposite him.
When the sounds diminished, he turned to me and began talking urgently in his Virginia drawl, “We’ve had time on our hands, William. I need to tell you that I have overheard some of our soldiers questioning why I am fighting for the North. As much as I understand their confusion, their words still sting. But when I am with you I feel a kinship, so I suspect I can talk to you, and I need to speak with someone. Can I trust you with my thoughts, Colonel Swain? I cannot trust anyone above me in command, and I would not share my feelings with any of my generals. We all need to appear strong, all of the time.”
“General Thomas, I am honored that you would consider me a trustworthy person, and I can assure you that anything you tell me will remain confidential.”
“Thank you, William…. You know, in the South the army determines public opinion and is unaffected by it. Everyone hopes for their victories and hangs on the latest news. I am a Southerner. I know. But in the North the army has no effect on public sentiment, yet we are slaves to it nevertheless. Our people clamor for action—and force us to move too soon, as at Fredericksburg and Bull Run. They have to be patient; we have to push deliberately, but patiently. We should consolidate regiments, and send home thousands of politically appointed officers who take their pay and give us nothing in return. More will die if we just keep fighting one inconclusive battle after another with no plan on either side.
“General Lee pleaded with me to join him and fight for Virginia before I made my decision.” The General paused. “I had fought with him in Texas, and we were the best of friends then and still were in eighteen sixty-one. He told me that no one in Washington had a right to tell us in Virginia how to live our lives; if we wanted to have slaves, that was our business. We contributed to the economy of the nation. We were not forcing slaves on anyone else. We were the ones who set the highest tone for public service in this country. The great politicians in our history had come from Virginia, not Boston and New York, and many of them, like Jefferson, had slaves. It did not keep them from thinking great thoughts and inspiring the North as well as the South.”
The songs outside had started up again, in the distance. He continued, deliberately and intently, looking right at me.
“But I was not swayed by Lee’s argument—amazingly, I was not. I could not have admired or liked a man more than I admired and liked Robert E. Lee. I think he expected that I would be moved by what he had said. Not only was I not affected by what he said, I came away from his speech believing less in the cause of the South than ever before. I simply said to him, ‘Robert, this is going to be a horrible war. It will not just divide and destroy families. It will threaten the existence of the country itself, not only the government in Washington. When that break up starts it will never stop. The South will not hold together. It will begin to shatter into smaller and smaller units—states, counties, municipalities, towns. All that holds the South together is its rural life and slavery, two things that you cannot build a
